Roles, relationships and identity in qualitative interviews - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

Roles, relationships and identity in qualitative interviews

Steve Mann (University of Warwick)

February 2011Slide2

Aims of talk

Share views from related disciplines concerning analysis and representation of roles and identity in qualitative interviews

Outline four ‘discourse dilemmas’ (Mann 2011)

Show how prior relationships are invoked and made relevant by both interviewer and interviewee during educational research interviews and how these prior relationships contribute to the ‘generation’ (Baker, 2004: 163) of data.

Slide3

Growing presence but undertheorised

The qualitative interview has a growing presence in applied linguistics.

Despite this increase, the qualitative interview has, for the most part,

been undertheorized in relation to roles, relationships and identity.

Slide4

Worrying tendencies:

Selected voices arranged in journalistic tableau

Bereft of context and methodological detail

Critical reflective dimension often missing.Slide5

The ‘active’ interview

Holstein and Gubrium’s (1995) contribution to this theorization of the ‘inter-view’ (interviews as unavoidably ‘active’)

‘no matter how formalized, restricted, or standardized’ the

nature of the interview, there is ‘interaction between the interview participants’. (Holstein and Gubrium 1995: 18)

Slide6

Discursive psychology

Antaki

et al

. (2003) present the concerns of discursive psychology in

reference to the interview.

Concern with the linguistic

features of positioning, footing, stake management, and identity

work.

Slide7

Contingent problems

Potter and

Hepburn (2005) draw attention to avoidable ‘contingent problems with interviewing:

the deletion of the interviewer

problems with the representation of

interaction

the unavailability of the interview set-up

the failure to consider

interviews as interaction.

Slide8

Co-construction

More research

needs to recognize that the interviewer and interviewee jointly construct the

interview talk (Sarangi 2003).

a ‘growing

literature on the importance of treating interviews as interactionally

co-constructed events in which participant identity and positioning have significant analytical implications’ Richards (2009: 159). Slide9

Interactional Context

Pavlenko (2007) - too much

emphasis on content and little attention to form and contexts of construction,

ignoring the ‘interactional influences on the presentation of self’ (2007: 178).

Interviewee contributions are

always produced in negotiation with the interviewer (Rapley 2001: 317)Slide10

A greater focus on the interviewer

Research studies need to be more open in their accounting of how membership, roles and relationship can affect the way talk develops (e.g. Roulston, 2001; Rapley, 2001, 2004; Garton and Copland 2010). Slide11

Extract 1

Sue umm I just wanted to pick up start off by

picking up one point from last time =

Linda = are you supposed to do that

pre

chat

((

joint

laughter

))

Sue I don’t know

Linda go on

Extract 2

Fiona: um () this is the same question really

Ned: is it

Fiona but I’m going to ask it anyway because I’m very inexperienced at this

((laughs))

I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do at this point

((joint laughter))Slide12

Extract 3

Fiona yes if you could change oh sorry

((phone starts ringing))

anything about your feedback style what would you change

May well I think you know the answer to that

((laughs))

Fiona okay

((laughs))

May I’m sorry I think that’s my phone and nobody ever rings me I do apologise

Fiona no no that’s fine that’s fine I’ll have another cake I like this interview I get cakes cakes and cats.

((May answers phone))

May sorry

((May sits down))

what was the () oh yes what would I change about my erm feedback style erm () well as I said I’d like to be able to be a little bit more circumspect about some issues I think ermSlide13

Responding to the analytic challenges

How can we make relevant the co-construction of interviews in our research papers and chapters? Is ‘contextual detail’ enough?

Is there a danger of paying too much attention to the roles and relationships of interviewer and interviewee at the expense of the content of what they say?Slide14

Reference List

Garton, S. and Copland, F. 2010. ‘I like this interview: I get cakes and cats!’; the effect of prior relationships on interview talk.

Qualitative Research

Vol. 10 (5), 533-551